Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award
The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award is awarded periodically at the Governors Awards ceremonies to "Creative producers, whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production." It was named in honor of the man who became head of production at the Universal Film Manufacturing Co. at the age of 20 and three years later was vice president and head of production for Louis B. Mayer. A year later, Mayer's studio became part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) with Thalberg assuming the position of vice president and supervisor of production. Over the next eight years MGM became Hollywood's most prestigious film studio, with Thalberg personally supervising the studio's top productions. Thalberg died of pneumonia in 1936 at the age of 37. The following year, the Academy instituted the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award. The Thalberg Award is not given each year. In earlier years, some individuals were honored more than once; but for the 1962 (35th) Awards (and continuing to present day), the Board voted that “no individual shall be eligible to receive the Thalberg Award more than once.” However, it is still counted as an "honorary Oscar". There have been 39 statuettes awarded to date. Recipients ; 10th Academy Awards, 1937 : Darryl F. Zanuck ; 11th Academy Awards, 1938 : Hal B. Wallis ; 12th Academy Awards, 1939 : David O. Selznick ; 14th Academy Awards, 1941 : Walt Disney ; 15th Academy Awards, 1942 : Sidney Franklin ; 16th Academy Awards, 1943 : Hal B. Wallis ; 17th Academy Awards, 1944 : Darryl F. Zanuck ; 19th Academy Awards, 1946 : Samuel Goldwyn ; 21st Academy Awards, 1948 : Jerry Wald ; 23rd Academy Awards, 1950 : Darryl F. Zanuck ; 24th Academy Awards, 1951 : Arthur Freed ; 25th Academy Awards, 1952 : Cecil B. DeMille ; 26th Academy Awards, 1953 : George Stevens ; 29th Academy Awards, 1956 : Buddy Adler ; 31st Academy Awards, 1958 : Jack L. Warner ; 34th Academy Awards, 1961 : Stanley Kramer ; 36th Academy Awards, 1963 : Sam Spiegel ; 38th Academy Awards, 1965 : William Wyler ; 39th Academy Awards, 1966 : Robert Wise ; 40th Academy Awards, 1967 : Alfred Hitchcock ; 43rd Academy Awards, 1970 : Ingmar Bergman ; 46th Academy Awards, 1973 : Lawrence Weingarten ; 48th Academy Awards, 195 : Mervyn LeRoy ; 49th Academy Awards, 1976 : Pandro S. Berman ; 50th Academy Awards, 1977 : Walter Mirisch ; 52nd Academy Awards, 1979 : Ray Stark ; 54th Academy Awards, 1981 : Albert R. Broccoli ; 59th Academy Awards, 1986 : Steven Spielberg ; 60th Academy Awards, 1987 : Billy Wilder ; 63rd Academy Awards, 1990 : David Brown and Richard D. Zanuck ; 64th Academy Awards, 1991 : George Lucas ; 67th Academy Awards, 1994 : Clint Eastwood ; 69th Academy Awards, 1996 : Saul Zaentz ; 71st Academy Awards, 1998 : Norman Jewison ; 72nd Academy Awards, 1999 : Warren Beatty ; 73rd Academy Awards, 2000 : Dino De Laurentiis ; 82nd Academy Awards, 2009 : John Calley ; 83rd Academy Awards, 2010 : Francis Ford Coppola